Ireland follows EU beef export trend

Marts: Irish exports of beef to non-EU countries declined by 32% during the first eight months of this year, in line with a general trend throughout the EU.

Irish exports to the Third Country markets were down 20,000 tonnes on the 2004 level, which represented a quarter of the total decline in EU exports to these markets for the period January-August 2005.

Exports from Germany suffered the largest decline at 43,000 tonnes, representing a decline of 46%. Exports from France and Italy were down by a total of 17,000 tonnes. A drop of 80,000 tonnes in exports from the EU-25 showed the decline increasing sharply for the first four months, rising from a fall of 1,625 tonnes for January to over 19,400 tonnes in April, before improving for the following two months.